CMS Announces Availability of 2013 Quality and Resource Use Reports

On September 30, CMS made 2013 Quality and Resource Use Reports (QRURs) available to group practices and physician solo practitioners nationwide. The 2013 QRURs contain quality and cost performance data for CY 2013, which is the performance period for the Value-Based Payment Modifier (VM) that will be applied to physician payments for items and services furnished under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for groups of 100 or more eligible professionals (EPs) in 2015. The 2013 QRURs are intended to provide clinically meaningful and actionable information that can be used to plan for improving the quality and efficiency of care provided to Medicare beneficiaries and also to understand and improve performance on quality and cost measures for the 2016 VM. The 2013 QRURs include data assessing a group practice or solo practitioner’s performance on cost measures, information about the services and procedures contributing most to beneficiaries’ costs, as well as performance on quality measures including performance on three outcome measures. Authorized representatives of groups and solo practitioners can access the QRURs at https://portal.cms.gov, using a valid Individuals Authorized Access to the CMS Computer Services (IACS) User ID and password. An authorized representative of a group must obtain an IACS account with one of the following group-specific Physician Value-Physician Quality Reporting System (PV-PQRS) system roles:

PV-PQRS Group Security Official (primary or back-up)

PV-PQRS Group Representative

A solo practitioner or an authorized representative of a solo practitioner must obtain an IACS account with one of the following individual-specific PV-PQRS System roles:

PV-PQRS Individual Practitioner

PV-PQRS Individual Practitioner Representative

Quick reference guides that provide step-by-step instructions for requesting each Physician Value-Physician Quality Reporting System (PV-PQRS) system role for a new or existing IACS account are available in the “Downloads” section on the Self Nomination/Registration web page. Visit the 2013 QRUR web page for more information on the 2013 QRURs.